EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Aircraft bringing Haitian migrants from Del Rio, Texas, continue to land in El Paso, Border Report confirmed on Tuesday.
The migrants stepped off a white U.S. Coast Guard airplane around 10 a.m. in an area of the airport designated for cargo and private flights. They were placed on a white unmarked bus that was later spotted in the parking lot of a Border Patrol station in El Paso. Adult men and women, as well as some children, could be seen retrieving belongings from the bus at the station.
El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego earlier said up to 500 Haitians would be flown from Del Rio to El Paso daily for the next few days. Those migrants are subject to removal under the Title 42 public health order and will not be released into the community, he said.
Ruben Garcia, executive director of Annunciation House in El Paso, said his shelter has not received any Haitian migrants from Del Rio as of Tuesday.
The bus at the Border Patrol station on Tuesday did not appear to carry many migrants. A second unmarked bus left the airport a few minutes later, empty.
Border Report has requested details regarding the arriving Haitian migrants to U.S. Customs and Border Protection but was told the situation in the El Paso Sector “is very fluid.” Agency officials said they were waiting on guidance from headquarters to address the questions.
Hundreds of Haitians and citizens of other countries apprehended on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande in Del Rio are being routed to other Texas cities for processing, as authorities in Val Verde County struggle with a multitude of people who came across from Mexico.
Most of those migrants are Haitians and Central Americans who are fleeing poverty, natural disaster and crime. An earthquake struck off the coast of Haiti in August, roughly a month after foreign mercenaries assassinated President Jovenel Moise.
Haitians who’d been staying in Mexico last week rushed the border between Acuna, Mexico, and Del Rio, forcing authorities to contain them under a bridge on the U.S. side. The river in the past few days has become a battleground, as U.S. Border Patrol agents have been forcefully trying to clear new arrivals off the riverbanks.
Images of the confrontations have appalled even Biden administration supporters.
“We have seen horrifying images of horse-mounted border enforcement agents using horse reins to whip migrants on the shores of the Rio Grande. This response to migrants is unacceptable,” said Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa. “The mistreatment of migrants at the border or in custody is something that we as Democrats profoundly condemn and the Biden Administration takes these allegations very seriously and has directed an investigation into these actions.”